Emma Bigge

EMMA BIGGE. A well merited honor came to a Rooks County teacher in the election of Miss Emma Bigge as county superintendent of schools in November, 1918. She has been identified with educational work in this county for a number of years, and the splendid record she made as a teacher has continued as an administrator of the public school system of the county.

Miss Bigge represents a pioneer family of Rooks County. Her father, the late Edward Bigge, was born in Illinois in 1846. He grew up and married in that state, and all his life was devoted to the farm and agriculture. In 1881 he homesteaded a quarter section in Rooks County, and handled his affairs so successfully that at the time of his death, which occurred in 1901, he owned a fine estate of 1,000 acres. His home farm was four miles northwest of Stockton, and it is still the home of his widow and several of his children.

Edward Bigge was a republican and a member of the Lutheran Church. He married Miss Dina Jasper, who was born in Germany in 1852, but was reared from childhood in Illinois. Her children are: Henry; William, a farmer six miles northwest of Stockton; Emma; Minnie, wife of John Sanders, a farmer eight miles northwest of Stockton; Ed, whose farm is three miles northwest of the county seat; Martha, who finished her education in the Fort Hays Normal School, lives at home with her mother and is a teacher in the county; Bertha and Benjamin, both at home, the latter being the practical manager of the old farm.

Miss Emma Gigge[sic] was born at Carlyle, Illinois, and grew up in Rooks County, Kansas. She was educated in the rural schools and early determined to devote her talents to the work of education. For eight years she managed some of the rural schools of the county, then, after two years of further training in the Fort Hays Normal School, she was called to the responsibilities of teaching in the Stockton schools. She was in the Stockton schools as a teacher from 1908 to 1918, until her election in the fall of the latter year as county superintendent of schools. She has under her supervision 118 schools, a staff of 165 teachers and about 3,666 pupils. She is a republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, being head of the educational department of her church.